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Tension

Anyone have any suggestions for tension headaches? Y’know, besides ‘cut your hair’, or ‘use the computer less’ – I’m trying to avoid those two if I can humanly help it! Things I’m trying include:

Water (I drink 3-4 liters a day easily)

Massage

Resting my eyes (though probably not as well as I should)

Sleep//sleeping properly (doing my best to keep spinal alignment in mind, and get a good 8-9 hours/night)

The occasional eye bath

And stuff I’m probably forgetting

I know I could stand to cut my hair to take the weight off of my head; I’m opting to bun it up during the day at now to have the pressure be on a different spot. I’m also making a point to avoid taking any pain relief unless absolutely necessary – I don’t want cut into the efficacy in the face of this stuff being chronic. My glasses are up to date, I’m eating proper meals… sort of stumped. *chuckles*

Oh sure, my doc commented that it could be because I am a stress bunny, and this is likely a contributing factor… yet, I didn’t have these problems back in the States, where I was significantly more stressed; my life now is pretty darn awesome. I suspect that a bigger problem is lighting in general – not that things are too bright or too dark or whatnot, but just because things are lit differently, refresh rates are higher, and all sorts of little things like that. I still need to book in to talk to my doctor next week to see if he can prescribe a good course of action.

But for now, I’ll be glad for suggestions as offered… as long as it’s nothing blithely snotty like ‘try relaxing’. Much like those who take for granted their ability to let go of things, I’m not too good at relaxing; I’m aware my life would be significantly better if I could get the hang of them. I’m working on it, mind, but it’s slow going, and easily aggravated by lack of consideration of such! 😉

Anyways, time to go fight with myself on whether or not I should lay down and rest my eyes. I abhor laying down during the day (illness meant I used to fall asleep on the drop of a hat… as long as it wasn’t bedtime), but it’s about the only way I can trick myself into closing my eyes for a few minutes. I’m too whiplash curious about everything around me if I can hear stuff, and the only thing I can hear in there during the day is the soothing sounds of the horse races from downstairs. 😀

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Tension — 8 Comments

You have most of my headache remedies already. I can’t think of anything else that you haven’t already mentioned. I do hope you can find a solution that works for you. I know my final remedy isn’t a go for you necessarily but cutting hair helped tremendously.

If you feel it’s stress them may some stress reducing “exercise” – yoga or tai chi come to mind. Maybe even just some light cardo might help. I’ve always heard exercise helps. Never tried it myself it seems counter productive as I can barely see much less move, but you never know maybe it’s something that is worth a shot. I’ve always wanted to try yoga that was targeted at headaches.

I’ve not really suffered from tension headaches, so am at a loss as to anything constructive, although the yoga mentioned could well be useful. I would point out that “letting go” is not something that I take for granted at all, as it was a hard won skill – it took lots of practice and concentrating on looking at things from a variety of angles before I could package it up, label it done and learn how to store it up in my brain without compulsively returning to it. I personally visualised doing all these things – storing the memories in cardboard boxes and putting them into an archive, for a good few years before I could get to the stage of not needing to go through the exercise to let them “roll off” me. As I’ve said many times though – that’s a personal strategy and everyone is different, so coping strategies have to be developed personally. I offer it only as an anecdote.

Antecode appreciated, even if not applicable. Perhaps if my parents hadn’t moved me so many times, but too many moves… *chuckles* Hopefully I’ll eventually figure out the pattern of self-destruction that the holding on forms, and be able to break it… but like all things… time, stupid time.

I had another thought on this, prompted by himself having had to go to the dentist (gotta love brothers that don’t mind being bothered on bank holidays) today with toothache. One of my friends suffered terribly from such headaches, only to find out from her dentist that she’d been grinding her teeth during her sleep. He gave her a mouthguard to prevent her doing such, which helped. So that may be another avenue of exploration?

From past experience, I can say that I don’t do so well with things in my mouth. I was toothless most of my pregnancy ’cause I kept almost puking from my teeth – a mouthguard, by nature of going further back in my mouth, would most definitely make me… well. It would be an idea if I didn’t have the world’s most ridiculous gag reflex. 🙂

I wasn’t suggesting that a mouthguard would be your solution, but that you might want to ask a dentist if he can see any signs of grinding. They would be a specialist in suggesting remedies, if that was the case.

I will endeavour to remember to bring it up when I see the dentist, if he isn’t too busy being disbelieving about my actual level of concern about my dental health. The guy I liked left the practice, and the new guy and I don’t jive the best. *sigh*